Fallout 2 on Windows 7

Damien. · 3 Jan 2012 at 17:44

Trying to get this beast running but having nothing but problems.

Rainbow graphics being the main one.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Steam version.

bushmins · 3 Jan 2012 at 18:47

I tried for a while but gave up (retail copy). I think the GoG version works fine with Win 7.

The below site is a wealth of info. The thread i linked was one i was reading while getting my retail copy to work, i gave up. But like i said i think the GoG version is fine, but you would have to check their forums to make sure.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53311&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

MeMeMeMe · 4 Jan 2012 at 11:50

For older games, it's better to get them on gog.com. They have a business model based on modifying older games (with publisher permission) to get them to work on the latest OS's.

npjnpj · 4 Jan 2012 at 12:50

Bit of a head scratcher this, never found out why it woks, but it does:

Right-click on the Windows desktop to bring up the window for changing the resolution. Don't adjust anything, just have this window open in the background.

Start Fallout 2, and it's ok again.

Freddie1980 · 4 Jan 2012 at 13:11

MeMeMeMe said:
For older games, it's better to get them on gog.com. They have a business model based on modifying older games (with publisher permission) to get them to work on the latest OS's.

I hope they do that with Thief 1 & 2 and remove the bug that prevents the game from working on any PC that has more then 1 thread.

Bubo · 4 Jan 2012 at 15:37

Have you tried "disable desktop composition" in the program properties? This seems to be a magic fix for allot of graphical problems with some games.

Damien. · 4 Jan 2012 at 16:32

I managed to fix it guys, thanks for the suggestions any way.

I installed US patch 1.02 and then the Restoration project patch.

Not only is it fixed, I have additional content and improved graphics.

MouthBoy · 4 Jan 2012 at 19:49

Diablo 1 and Age of Empires 2 also do this. I get around it by closing explorer.exe and running the games from the task manager.

melipone1 · 4 Jan 2012 at 20:39

Something to do with explorer.exe I believe. This is my old .bat file for fallout1 to fix the rainbow colours. Don't ask what it all means, I just remember finding out about it somewhere. It basically kills explorer.exe when you play, then resumes it when you exit, I think:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
falloutw.exe
pause
start explorer.exe

I put that in a file with .bat at the end and ran that before Fallout

Weebull · 4 Jan 2012 at 20:53

You can fix it via the registry too. I found this out when I started Fallout 1 not too long ago. All you need is:

Code:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\Fallout2]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="fallout2.exe"
"ID"=dword:362ef769

All you need to do is change the name to whatever game is causing you issues, get the ID from <same dir as above>\DirectDraw\MostRecentApplication, and the job's a good'un.

Funnily enough I started Fallout 2 a couple of days ago too. Where are you up to?

FoxEye · 4 Jan 2012 at 21:28

Damien. said:
I managed to fix it guys, thanks for the suggestions any way.

I installed US patch 1.02 and then the Restoration project patch.

Not only is it fixed, I have additional content and improved graphics.

I hope you don't get the same problem I did.

With both FO1 and FO2, I could get to the very last boss and the game crashed. For FO1, it was the elevator going down. Can't remember what it was for FO2.

I was basically 99% done with both games, but never able to complete them, due to crashing